Vodafone Malta employees are benefiting from work-life balance measures that help foster a culture where employees feel central to the company’s success, the company said yesterday in light of it having been one of the first companies to be awarded the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality’s Equality mark.

The company said it places importance on supporting employees by offering the possibility of work-life balance measures that enable them to balance their working life with other priorities, including parental and other caring responsibilities, lifelong learning opportunities, charity work, leisure activities and other interests.

“We all have responsibilities and interests inside and outside of the work environment, and we believe that staff will be more effective if they can achieve a reasonable balance between these commitments,” commented Martin Gregory, Vodafone Malta’s head of human resources.

Vodafone Malta said it considers employees in all areas and levels of the organisation for flexible working arrangements regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief, or whether they have a disability, their level of seniority, their current working pattern or whether they are employed on a permanent or fixed-term basis.

Amongst the work-life balance measures that Vodafone Malta’s employees are benefiting from are flexible working hours, teleworking, reduced hours following the birth of a child, extended maternity leave for an uninterrupted period of 17 paid weeks, birth of a child leave, parental leave entitlement of three calendar months and community service leave, providing employees with three days per year of time off with pay for services within the community.

“We acknowledge that, with the appropriate use of flexibility in the way we manage our work, we can achieve our objectives, deliver a good service and increase our effectiveness, while, at the same time, improving the quality of life for our staff,” added Mr Gregory.